And thus, these few slight and obvious transitions being admitted, Mr. Tyrwhitt easily explains the creation of all things by Jesus Christ, to be, the bestowing upon all persons who would accept them, the privileges of the Gospel, by the ministry of Christ.

Again, on Col. i. 16, we are informed by the German divines, Ernestus and Teller, in a similar felicity of interpretation, that when it is said, that by Christ were all things created, that are in Heaven, and that are in earth; visible and invisible, &c. it is meant to express by an EASY FIGURE, a new moral creation wrought in the world by the gospel of Christ-the things that are in Heaven, and that are in earth, meaning the Jews and Pagans:—and the things visible and invisible, the present and future generations of men!!! See Rosenmuller's Scholia-on Col. i. 16.*

To remind these writers, that St. John has placed this matter beyond dispute, in his first chapter, by declaring, that the world which was made by Christ, was a world which yet knew him not, and therefore could not have been the work of a spiritual creation, the very nature of which was to bestow the true knowledge of Christ and his Gospel: to remind them, I say, of this, and of the other express declarations in that chapter, on the subject of Christ's pre-existence in general, as well as on that of the creation by him in particular, is but to little purpose. It is replied, that in that chapter, the Logos, to whose operations the effects there spoken

* What says the learned dissenter Mr. Peirce upon such treatment of this passage of Colossians?" The interpretation which refers what is here said of our Saviour, to the new creation, or the renovation of all things, is so forced and violent, that it can hardly be thought, that men would ever have espoused it, but for the sake of an hypothesis. The reader may meet with a confutation of it in most commentators." Paraphrase, &c. p. 12. note w.

of are ascribed, does not imply a person, but an attribute: and, that the work of creation is consequently not attributed to Christ, but to the WISDOM of God the Father. This is not the place to discuss this point. Whoever wishes to see it fully examined, may consult Whitby, Doddridge and Rosenmuller. To the enquiring reader I would more particularly recommend upon this head, Pearson on the Creed, p. 116-120: Le Clerc, Nov. Test. tom. i. p. 392-400; Wits. Misc. Sacr. tom. ii. p. 88-118: Whitaker's Origin of Arianism, p. 39-114: Howes's Critical Observations, vol. iv. p. 38-198: Bishop of Lincoln's Elements, Art. ii. and Dr. Laurence's Dissertation upon the Logos.

But I am content to rest the whole issue of the question, upon the state of the case furnished by the Socinian or Unitarian writers themselves. Let the reader but look into the translation of this chapter by Mr. Wakefield, and let him form his judgment of the merits of the Socinian hypothesis, from the mode of expounding Scripture, which he will there find employed for its support. Let him try, if he can even comprehend the distinct propositions contained in the first fourteen verses. Let him try, if he can annex any definite notions to the assertion, that wisdom (meaning thereby an attribute of God) was God: or to the assurance so strongly enforced by repetition, that the wisdom of God was with God; in other words, that the Deity had not existed before his own essential attributes:-or again, if he can conceive, how the Evangelist (supposing him in his senses) could have thought it necessary, after pronouncing the true light to be God, formally to declare that John was not that light: or, how he could affirm, that the wisdom of which he had spoken but as an attribute, was made flesh, and became a person, visible, and tangible:-in short, let him

try, if he does not find, both in the translation and the explanatory notes, as much unintelligible jargon as was ever crowded into the same compass; nay, as is even, according to Mr. Wakefield's notion, to be found in the Athanasian creed itself. This however is called a candid and critical investigation of Scripture; and this, it is to be remembered, is the latest,* and therefore to be supposed the best digested production of the Socinian school: it comes also from the hands of a writer certainly possessed of classical erudition, a quality, of which few of his Unitarian fellow labourers in the sister country are entitled to boast.

But, to add one instance more, of the ingenious mode of reasoning, employed by these writers on the subject of Christ's pre-existence :-in the 8th chap. of John, we find our Saviour arguing with the Jews; who, on his asserting that Abraham had seen his day, immediately reply, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM. The inference from this, that our Saviour here declared himself to have existed before the time of Abraham, appears not to be a very vio

*Notes on all the Books of Scripture, by Dr. Priestley, have issued from the press since the first edition of this work: and to the exposition there attempted of the introduction of St. John's Gospel, the remarks, which I have made on Mr. Wakefield's translation, apply as aptly, as if for that they had been originally designed. Whoever has a curiosity to discover whether Mr. Wakefield or Dr. Priestley be the more unintelligible, may consult Notes, &c. vol. iii. pp. 18, 19, compared with Mr. Wakefield's comment already referred to. In addition to this work, there has yet more lately been given to the public from the Socinian press, what the authors are pleased to call "An improved Version of the New Testament." What new lights this improved Version has thrown upon this part of Scripture, will be seen when we come more particularly to notice this performance in another part of these volumes.

lent one; his answer being immediately and necessarily applied to the remark made by the Jews upon his age, which rendered it impossible that he could have seen Abraham: so that this passage will be admitted to be one of those, that "seem directly to assert the pre-existence of Christ." Now, in what way have Socinus, and his followers, got rid of this seeming contradiction to their opinions?" ПIp Aбpaau yevεodai, εyw εi, must be thus translated: Before Abram can be ABRAHAM, that is, THE FATHER OF MANY NATIONS, I must be THE MESSIAH, or Saviour of the world. This famous discovery, which belongs to Socinus, was indeed esteemed of a nature, so far above mere human apprehension, that his nephew Faustus Socinus informs us, he had received it from divine inspiration.-Non sine multis precibus ipsius, Jesú nomine invocato, impetravit ipse. (Socinus contr. Eutrop. tom. 2. p. 678.) This sublime interpretation has, it must be confessed, been relinquished by later Socinians, who in imitation of Grotius, consider Christ as asserting only, that he was before Abraham in the decree of God. But how this could serve as a reply to the objection of the Jews, respecting priority of actual existence; or how, in this, Christ said any thing of himself, that was not true of every human being, and therefore nugatory; or why the Jews, upon a declaration, so innocent, and so unmeaning, should have been fired with rage against him as a blasphemer; or (if the sense be, that Christ existed in the divine mind antecedent, not to Abraham's birth, but to his existence in the divine mind likewise) what the meaning can be of a priority in the divine foreknowledge;-I leave to Mr. Belsham and his assistant commentators to unfold. Indeed, this last interpretation seems not to have given entire satisfaction to Socinians themselves, as we find from a paper signed Discipu

lus, in the 4th vol. of the Theol. Repos. in which it is asserted, "that the modern Unitarians, have needlessly departed from the interpretation given by Slichtingius, Enjidinus and other old Socinians, and have adopted another in its stead, which is not to be supported by any just grammatical construction." This gentleman then goes on to furbish up the old Socinian armour, and exults in having rendered it completely proof against all the weapons of Orthodoxy.

Mr. Wakefield, however, seems to think it safer to revert to the principles of Grotius's interpretation: and, accordingly having fortified it against the charge of grammatical inaccuracy, he presents it in somewhat of a new shape, by translating the passage, Before Abraham was born, I am HE-viz. the Messiah. By which, he says, Christ means to imply, that "his mission was settled and certain before the birth of Abraham." That Mr. Wakefield has, by this construction, not only avoided the mystical conceits of Socinus's interpretation, but also some of the errors chargeable on that of Grotius, cannot be denied: but, besides that he has built his entire translation of the passage, upon the arbitrary assumption of an ellipsis, to which the texts quoted as parallel furnish no support whatever, it remains, as before, to be shewn, what intelligible connexion subsists between our Lord's answer, and the question put to him by the Jews. If he meant merely to say, that his mission as the Messiah had been ordained before the birth of Abraham, (which is in itself a tolerable strain upon the words even of this new translation,) it will require all Mr. Wakefield's ingenuity, to explain in what way this could have satisfied the Jews, as to the possibility of Christ's having actually seen Abraham, which is the precise difficulty our Lord proposes to solve by his reply.